


Hold Me Closer Than I Can Ever Remember Being Held

by some_good_clean_fun



Category: Video Blogging RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - No Girlfriends/No Wives, Friends to Lovers, Hijinx, Light Angst, M/M, Music, Self-Isolation, nerf war, world events
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-22
Updated: 2020-03-22
Packaged: 2021-03-01 04:47:26
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,769
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23259394
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/some_good_clean_fun/pseuds/some_good_clean_fun
Summary: Danny was visited by Drew just before the Government insisted on mandatory self-isolation, with strict monitoring and hefty fines. So now, Danny and Drew are stuck in Danny's house together for the foreseeable future.
Relationships: Danny Gonzalez/Drew Gooden
Comments: 12
Kudos: 86





	Hold Me Closer Than I Can Ever Remember Being Held

**Author's Note:**

> When I get anxious I like to write. If you're currently feeling anxious about what's going on with COVID-19, this fic may make you feel worse. It may also make you feel better? Take care of yourself.

**Day 1**

“Why does this feel like the third and final episode of your podcast?” Danny asks, gazing at Drew, who is staring at his phone silently, lips pressed into a tight, thin line.

Drew looks up, incredulous. “Sorry for not being a paragon of entertainment. In my defence, I’m your guest and I feel like in these circumstances you should be entertaining me.”

Danny concedes the point.

“Wanna have a Nerf battle?”

“Fuck yeah.”

It takes forty minutes to set up (and an hour and a half to wage war.) Despite the little devil on his shoulder telling him to hide extra ammo where Drew will never find it, he puts up a fair fight. Danny distributes ‘med packs’; water bottles, granola bars and band-aids evenly around his house. He sequesters ammo in easy to find places. He ensures he has the four fully functioning guns he has left over from a failed video shoot hidden in plain sight. 

Drew spends the time Danny’s planning getting them a couple of costumes to wear – scribbling logos and phrases on merch shirts, elaborately decorating bandanas to act as flags. 

By the time they’re ready they’ve pushed furniture into strategic positions and made their own little base camps. 

So the thing about Drew that Danny really wishes he’d known before he suggested this was that he’s silent as a fucking fox. Which is to say – not at all. He goes ratatatattaa, chchchchchc, yip yip yip – he falls over shit and knocks his knee, he drops his gun on at least two occasions from what Danny can hear. It’s so goddamned easy to shoot the guy in the arm, the gut, the leg, the ass. Danny almost feels sorry for him. Except not, because despite his best intentions, Danny is competitive as hell. 

Drew tries though, bless his heart. He sets up decoys, he’s very successful at attaining med packs and extra ammo, he has excellent aim when he’s not half-toppling over. 

Danny loves seeing the extra spark of unbridled youthful joy on Drew’s face when he thinks he’s going to capture Danny’s flag. It seems like such a shame to cut his hopes and dreams into shreds and bombard him with a barrage of bullets. To pull the rug from under him – quite literally – and snatch his gun from his hands. Drew stares up at Danny still laughing, eyes creasing at the corners. It’s a particularly heart-warming sight.

“You got me,” Drew whines. 

He holds his hand up to ask for Danny to help him up. And this is Danny’s fatal mistake. He takes Drew’s hand and doesn’t expect him to yank him down on top of him, has no idea how quickly Drew’s capable of moving, scrabbling up from under Danny’s weight, kneeing him in the thigh in the process, and making one last ditch attempt to get the flag.

But Danny grabs hold on his ankle and won’t let go. A good five minutes go by of them flailing about on the floor, nerf guns kicked too far away for either of them to gain purchase. Eventually, finally, they both concede it’s a tie. 

“I feel like I’m the real winner here,” Drew says, after they’ve smashed down a couple of cans of berry La Croix and Danny has changed his shirt because he was sweaty as fuck. 

“No. We agreed. There is no winner.”

“I mean, sure, but, it isn’t my house we’ve all but destroyed.” Drew swipes a hand through his dark blond hair, making it spike up irregularly. 

“You’re helping me put this all to rights,” Danny says. It isn’t a question. There is no choice.

“Am I, though?” 

Danny reaches behind himself for the Nerf N’Strike Jolt he had stashed down the back of his pants, pops Drew right in the chest. “You _will_ be helping.”

It was never a _completely_ fair fight.

**Day 2**

The thing about this whole situation is this: Danny has a pretty strong introverted side and can quite happily keep himself entertained for days at a time recording music, coming up with new video concepts, playing with Peanut, dicking around on the internet, and doing household chores. But when he’s _forced_ to do so through no powers or choices of his own, it feels like a burden that’s too hard to bear. Calling his family is a one-two punch of heart-warming and heart-breaking, because he’s so glad they have the technology to be able to talk, but he misses how his mom will reach up and brush her fingers through his hair, how his dad will bear hug him in the way fathers worldwide can’t seem to help, and he doesn’t know when he’ll get to have that again. Hopefully soon, but no one knows for certain. 

And he knows he’s luckier than most – he has more money, owns his home, isn’t going to immediately lose all streams of income. But that doesn’t mean he’s not pants-shittingly terrified of what may or may not come. He’s just trying not to panic about it. 

It helps, having Drew here. It helps, but it doesn’t fix the situation. Because Drew is also an introvert, and gets inside his head a lot, and needs to be coaxed out to share his thoughts. Because Drew is just as scared about all this as Danny is, and his inherent reaction is to bottle that shit up and never let it out. Because Drew, despite being one of Danny’s closest friends, still feels like an unknown quantity in hundreds of tiny ways and Danny hasn’t fully figured out how to deal with this. 

“You know, I don’t know why I didn’t think of this before, but I have two guitars.”

Drew stops staring idly at the Netflix screen. In an instant he seems to switch from robot to human. “You do?”

“Yeah. We could jam.”

So they do. Danny teaches Drew the only Tim Minchin song he knows how to play on guitar; You Grew On Me. Drew teaches him Bo Burnham’s ‘welcome to youtube’. They both lament the fact so many comedy musicians play and compose on piano rather than guitar.

“Why don’t you play in any of your videos?” Drew asks after they play a few more songs together and Danny’s fingers are feeling sore. It’s been a while since he played for any extended period of time. 

“Why don’t you?”

“I’m not known for my music, but you have actual bona fide tracks to stream on spotify.”

“Okay, but the music I do doesn’t really have much space for guitar-work, does it?”

Drew quirks an eyebrow. “It could.”

Danny doesn’t really know how to explain that it’s good to have at least one hobby that he isn’t trying to monetize. That he enjoys playing just for him. That he’s worried if he attempted it professionally it would stop being something he loves to spend time doing and become yet another job. Already he finds it difficult sometimes to feel like a real boy. How much harder would it be if every part of himself were on display?

But, then again, everything in the world is changing and maybe this is the perfect time to embrace that. No one knows what the future’s going to bring. 

“Let’s write a song, then. Something that’s not quite gallow’s humor, but not ignoring the current state of the world at the same time.”

“I’ll _try_ to help…” Drew starts. 

Danny cuts him off. “You don’t give yourself enough credit. You’re a good writer. You just need to channel that into rhyme.”

**Days 3, 4 and 5**

The song is not bad. Danny wouldn’t say it’s great, but he has high and exacting standards and the fact both he and Drew are perfectionists doesn’t help. But it’s catchy as hell, has an anthemic quality to it that earworms into you, and he genuinely loves some of the funniest lines. The recording goes really well, though Danny wishes he had a better guitar mic. Drew’s a better player than Danny thinks he’ll ever be and it doesn’t feel fair that this isn’t recorded at the highest possible quality. 

Now that they’ve had something to work on together, things have gotten better between him and Drew – more natural, less stilted, more like how they were on the tour bus. They take turns cooking. Danny spares Drew the horror of having to find decent content to watch by making him watch garbage. Drew helps him fix a wardrobe that’s been in his storage room for eighteen months. They chat freely about any and all topics. Sometimes, they even disagree, and those debates go on for hours at a time. 

Sure, they’re mostly _Star Wars_ based arguments, but because they’re both so set in their opinions, and Drew should have a degree in being wrong about the Expanded Universe, these talks are a wealth of conversation. 

For at least a couple of hours every day, Danny doesn’t think about the fact they’re stuck here, like this, in mandatory self-isolation. But then they’ll watch the news for ten minutes before switching it off and will gaze at each other for a moment. Things might not be as bleak as they seem, but that doesn’t mean they’re comforting, either. 

“What would you be doing, if you were back home?” Danny asks on the fifth night. 

They’ve dragged the mattresses into the living room, turned it into a sleepover. There’s a gentle glow in the corner of the room from a streetlight outside, and the distant hum of the fridge in the kitchen. Danny won’t admit he suggested the shared room thing because he saw Drew’s eyes looking particularly red-rimmed after dinner. He knows that Drew wouldn’t appreciate being told it’s okay to cry. That’s the sort of thing Drew would keep to himself, deep, deep down under layers of false bravado and sarcasm.

“Probably the same thing we’re doing here, but feeling nine thousand percent more miserable,” Drew says; and for once, he sounds genuine and not sardonic. “What would you be doing, if I hadn’t gotten stuck here with you?”

“Walking around in my birthday suit and jerking off whenever the mood strikes.”

“Oh, we’re being that level of honest, okay. How many times have you managed to come in a day?”

“When I was younger I came eight times over the span of sixteen hours.”

“Didn’t that… chafe?”

“Absolutely. But it was well worth it.” Danny reminisces on that day fondly, pats his lower stomach. 

“So what’s your most recent record?”

“Three. It’s pathetic, I know, but I honestly get bored after a while.”

Drew laughs and Danny feels victorious. He looks toward the dark shape that is Drew, can just make out the flare of light on his eyes. “I’m glad you’re here. The circumstances are frightening and I feel unsure about so many things. But at least we’re together.”

“Same,” Drew whispers back. 

**Day 6**

They spend the day filming. There are a lot of lighting and sound issues to sort out, and then there’s the choreography. All up it takes 5 hours to record, which is one of the longest shoots Danny’s had for a video filmed entirely in and around his house. Watching the footage Danny knows it’s going to be one of his best videos yet. 

They drink celebratory beers with their Hello Fresh burgers and work out how to divide up the labor of editing in the next few days. There are a few special effects Danny wants to incorporate and he knows they’re going to take the majority of his concentration.

“Can I ask you a personal question?”

“No, I only answer questions that are strictly impersonal and trivial. You won’t get any hashtag Danswers that compromise my unflappable aura of mystery.”

“Well I’m going to ask it and I guess you can choose not to reply,” Drew says, shaking his head. “Why did you even study computer science if you’ve always had a love for being a performer?”

“And there I was thinking we were gonna get into another juicy masturbation conversation,” Danny says, teasing. “Uhm, there were a lot of factors. I guess, primarily, I was terrified of performing in front of crowds. You saw how I get. So I wasn’t ever sure I’d be able to maintain that to the degree necessary to make acting a fully formed career. I like being creative, but more on my own terms and I didn’t know if that was feasible and conducive to actually getting paid. Maybe I just wasn’t passionate enough.”

“But you are passionate. I’ve seen it. You always want to grow, to improve. Your production values today were through the roof.”

“Yeah, _now_. Now I’m more comfortable with it, I’ve had a taste of the success I dreamed about. But back then? I was a kid. I’m happy I’ve got a fallback, because you and I both know this can all go away in a snap.”

Drew nods, somber. “True.”

“Don’t worry. I’ll hire you to be my live-in companion if and when Youtube finally crashes and burns. All you’ll have to do is clean my house twice a day, cook all my meals, wear something sexy and sweet.”

“Is this something I have a choice in, or…”

“I said hire, not kidnap. What, you don’t want to be an idealized version of a 50s housewife?”

“Not if I can help it, no. It’s not the sexy and sweet aspect I have a problem with. After all, that is my default state. It’s more the cleaning and cooking aspect I’m struggling to wrap my head around. Couldn’t we also have a maid?”

“All right. But I’m only agreeing because I want you to have enough time every day to pretty yourself up for me.”

“I’m feeling very attacked right now. No wonder Greg prefers to roast you during every interaction.”

“They don’t roast me during _every_ interaction. Just most of them. On all platforms. Whenever I post.”

That night they graduate to lying on the same bed in Danny’s room. There’s plenty of space. They don’t even bother putting pillows between them. Peanut snuggles up on the sheets between their legs. The soft, quiet sounds of Drew breathing are comforting and Danny finds it easy to begin drifting off, calmer and more relaxed than he’s felt since self-isolation became less of a request and more of a highly regimented requirement. 

“I wasn’t sure how to feel about you when we first met,” Drew says. He, obviously, is not quite as sleepy as Danny. Danny twists around to face him, straining his eyes to get the vaguest impression of his expression. “I was in awe of your stats and impressed with your more technical vines, but jealous too, and I thought maybe you’d be the kind of asshole I hate. But you’re the kind of asshole I love and I’m thankful for that every single day.”

“Thanks, I think.”

“You’re welcome, I know.”

**Day 7**

After spending eight hours editing; Danny on his desktop, Drew on his laptop, they’ve taken to humming bars of songs to each other, playing a guessing game of Name that Song. It’s warm in Danny’s office and Drew’s borrowed a pair of shorts so they sit together, knees knocking, skin against skin. Danny can feel the heat of Drew, the brush of the fine hairs on his legs. 

It’s a little distracting. 

They’ve gotten closer over the past week and crossed lines they hadn’t yet, but Danny doesn’t know if he should suggest they cross one more. He wants to. And maybe he should be all ‘seize the day’ and ‘fuck the consequences’. But if it doesn’t work out, if it isn’t how he’s imagined, if it feels like it’s something they did simply to while away the time… Danny doesn’t think he could handle that. Not on top of his already frazzled nerves. So he doesn’t make the move his body keeps telling him to, and he keeps a tight lid on all of his compulsions. 

“I think I’m up to the point where we can splice my parts with yours,” Drew says, and Danny can’t help but giggle at the coincidence in the convergence of his thoughts with Drew’s words. 

“What’s so funny?”

“Nothing. There is totally no humor to be had in the phrase you uttered.”

“Out of the two of us, how is it _you_ who keeps taking this to a degradingly sexual place? Stop stealing my reputation. I’m the one with the crass sex jokes.”

Danny shakes his head from side-to-side. “I guess you infected me.”

Drew rubs a hand down his face, gives the world’s longest sigh. 

“Anyway, sex isn’t always degrading and crass. It can be uplifting and sensitive. Like a delicate flower,” Danny continues, because it’s fun, teasing Drew. The push and pull of it, the sense of trust.

“I think I threw up in my mouth a little.”

Danny holds out a half-empty glass. “One boy, one cup.”

Drew laughs so hard he almost falls off his chair. He takes a deep, gulping breath, has a few sips of the proffered water. He smiles at Danny like he’s the only person in the world, and in that moment, that’s how it feels – like they’re the last people on earth, that everything they’re seeing on the news or via the internet is one gigantic simulation. It will only take a flick of a switch and this will all be over, they can go back to their regularly scheduled programming. 

“Are you gonna let me show you what I’ve got?” Drew asks, and then rolls his eyes at himself. 

Danny spares him more innuendo. “Yeah, okay, let’s see.” He shuffles his dining chair closer; he gave Drew the super comfortable rolling computer chair, and watches a minute and a half of perfection. 

“You’ve gotten so much better at video editing compared to when we first began collaborating.”

“Yeah, you gave me advice, Kurtis showed me tips and tricks, and then of course, there’s always…”

They say, “Skillshare” in sync, smiling. 

“It meets your standards?” Drew queries. 

Sometimes, Danny forgets that the confidence is mostly a façade and that Drew is fairly insecure, but it’s pretty obvious here how much he’s craving Danny’s approval. It hurts, to know that Drew doesn’t have the same confidence in himself that Danny has in him. 

“It’s fucking boss. Meanwhile, I am nowhere near finished, but I _am_ braindead. Let’s go chill.”

“We should go outside while the sun’s still shining.”

“You know COVID-19 isn’t going to block out the sun, right? It’s important to me that you know that.”

Drew hooks an arm around Danny’s neck, steers him out of the office. Danny welcomes the physical contact, leaning into the trunk of Drew’s body. “Before nightfall, you dumbass.” 

Out in the fresh air they play with the Nerf guns again. It’s far less regimented and way more like a children’s game of tag, but it makes more sense than walking around Danny’s house ten times to feel like they’ve exercised. This time, Drew absolutely and definitively wins, hitting Danny a total of twenty-seven times in half an hour, though he does also fall over Danny’s one and only potted plant and bruise his knee. 

When it begins to get dark they go inside. Danny brings up the bottom of his shirt, swipes the sweat off his face. He looks up to see Drew staring at him shell-shocked, lips parted and cheeks flushing pink. It’s a surprising reaction considering Drew’s seen him shirtless on multiple occasions. 

“You okay?” Danny asks.

“Not really. I’m trying not to think about how this feels like the last week on Earth, but I keep reminding myself whenever I think I’ve successfully diverted my attention.”

“I know the feeling. But it’s not that extreme. Every day there’s good news. Increased testing. More work toward a successful vaccination. Treatments. It’ll be okay in the long-run.”

“I wish I had your unfailing optimism.”

“Two weeks ago you were scoffing at people who were panicking.”

“Two weeks ago was my attempt at lightening the mood because I, too, was panicking. I still am, Danny. We haven’t seen anything like this in our lifetime. It’s making me feel things I’ve never felt before, and certainly hope to never feel again.”

Danny steps closer to Drew, reels him in for a hug. Drew is warm and solid against him, a reassuring weight. Drew shudders out a shaky breath before easing totally into the embrace, wrapping his arms around Danny’s back. They breathe together, syncing inhales and exhales, Danny hoping that Drew’s feeling the same sense of solace and serenity that he is, now that they’re an inch apart. He smooths his fingers over Drew’s spine, closes his eyes, relaxes into the stillness. 

When Drew pulls back, Danny doesn’t feel ready to let him go, but he will. Except Drew doesn’t go far. Danny feels Drew’s lips against his, gentle and tentative. Danny kisses back, soft and slow. 

“Is this all right?” Drew whispers, between one kiss and the next.

“No, I hate it, we should stop,” Danny says, laden with sarcasm, putting his hand at the back of Drew’s head and tugging him closer, kissing deeper. He puts everything he can into the kiss and is gratified when Drew gives a short, sharp gasp, clutches at the fabric at the shoulder of his shirt.

This time when they ease apart, Drew’s lips are deep pink and swollen, his eyes a little glazed. He has a blush high up on his cheekbones and his hair’s in complete disarray. It’s a very arresting sight. And Danny doesn’t know what his own face is doing, but Drew’s gaze goes dark and intent. 

“I don’t have much of an appetite, how about you?” Drew asks, Adam’s apple bobbing. 

“I’m feeling more like going to bed than eating, if that’s what you’re suggesting.” 

Drew nods and takes Danny’s hand. They walk silently to the bedroom, together.

**Day 8**

“They think there’s going to be a population boost in nine months’ time and I can see why,” Drew says, putting his laptop on the floor and sliding off his glasses. He looks good in Danny’s bed, sleep-mussed and filled with languor.

“I’m not getting you pregnant, Drew. I mean, we can try, multiple times, in many positions. But it won’t take.”

“Awwwwwww,” Drew says, smirking. 

Danny presses him back against the bed and kisses him quiet. Then kisses him loud. Then kisses him until they’re both breathless. Again, and again, and again.


End file.
